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Offseason Movement: The Tigers didn’t make a ton of offseason moves, but they did add shortstop Adam Everett, catcher Gerald Laird, pitchers Edwin Jackson, Brandon Lyon and Juan Rincon.

Top Prospect: Rick Porcello, RHP
Porcello, who is widely considered one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, was selected with the 27th overall pick in the first round of the 2007 draft. He has a low-to-mid 90s fastball, a slider, changeup and a curve, but it’ll take time for that array of pitches to be mastered. Some believe that the 20-year old is ready now, but there are signs (mostly his K/IP ratio) that another year or two in the minors would do him good. Unless Jeremy Bonderman starts the season on the DL, Porcello will likely start in Double-A this season to gain more experience.

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All 2009 Fantasy Articles | 2009 Position Rankings

There’s an unwritten rule among intelligent fantasy football drafters that goes a little something like this: Don’t draft a quarterback before Round 5. That’s because unless you land Peyton Manning, there’s not a huge difference between the No. 2 rated quarterback and the No. 8.

A similar rule can be applied to catchers in fantasy baseball. Chances are if you selected Victor Martinez (the No. 1 rated catcher in most draft rankings in 2008) early in your draft last year, you punched a whole through one of your walls by the All-Star Break.

If you selected a guy like Joe Mauer in the fourth or fifth round, you probably were quite satisfied by his .328-9-85-98 production. But what if we told you that you could have had taken Bengie Molina much later and still wound up with .292-16-95-46 production out of your catcher spot? Sure, you would give up runs and sacrifice average, but you almost doubled your home runs and gave your RBI numbers a boost as well.

What we’re saying is – don’t overvalue the catcher position. Let someone else jump on Brian McCann’s potential or Russel Martin’s stolen base production while you’re concentrating on bolstering the other positions that don’t have the amount of depth that the backstops do.